Optimal Land Use Regulation for Human–Coyote Conflicts in the Denver Metropolitan Area

Abstract

While human–wildlife conflicts are an emerging problem in urban areas, wildlife conservation is needed to sustain human life. Because the degree of conflict depends on land cover types and housing density classes, land-use policies intended to influence both resident and wildlife behavior are needed. This paper numerically simulates the optimal urban boundary regulation to reduce human–coyote conflicts and conserve the ecosystem. Given the parameters of the Denver Metropolitan Area, the optimal location of the urban boundary is estimated as 1 km farther away from the market city boundary. As a result of the optimization more coyotes emerge in urban areas, while fewer herbivores and plants emerge in natural habitats. Because of a “cascade effect”, that is, secondary-and-later effects on the number of certain species through a food chain, the optimal result sees the number of plants increase with a smaller natural habitat than the market size. This indicates that because both direct and cascade effects are affected by the degree of land-use policies, it is necessary to consider the cascade effect when designing these policies.